Artificial Reality

I rub my eyes again to ensure I was hearing properly. “You know you hear with your ears, right?” he chuckles. “Sorry, who did you say you are again?” I blurt out hurriedly. “I am God”, he shrugs. I think back on my day- crawled to work at seven, squeezed in the train, stuck to the grainy screen till five and crawled back home at nine. No alcohol or intoxicant. I rub my eyes again. What a random day to be a prank-victim! I stump out my cigarette and start to make my way out of the dark alley into the main road, refusing to meet the expectant eyes of the checkered-shirt and khaki pants-clad “God”. The dull ache in the soles of my feet remind me of my lack of rest. I need to stop moving, I tell myself.

//The winter sun caressed my hair/ When I first found out I was leaking// Like the broken white tap on our pink basin//

I whistle to the stray ginger cat as I enter my apartment complex. It stirs in its cozy sleep on the pavement and gives me a sleepy, sideways glance. I envy cats, I always tell my colleagues. It has nine lives to rest and sleep. Inside, I find her seated on the sofa, dozing beneath the golden glow of the fairy-lights that she loved, waiting for me. I kiss her on the forehead and gently touch her shoulder to wake her. She looks up at me, breaking into a sleepy smile. As I mirror the smile, I notice her dimples oozing. “Momo, you’re leaking again” I say. After dinner, I remind myself to feed the cat. She looks divine in her cascading curls and pink pyjamas, a sight which immediately excites me.

//The pinks of my brain mixed with the whites of my heart/ oozing out of any opening/ they could find//The sun is too bright// the world of your screen is cooler/ Maybe//

As I trudge through the slimy floor to the bedroom, I notice that the white bedspread has now turned into a canvas of various colours mixed together, as they are every night. Oh, but the dog! I rush out of the apartment, dish in hand to feed him. By the time I reach outside, I can see the faint outline of dawn painted against the twinkling lights of the city. As he eats, its ginger fur glistens due to the transparent liquid oozing out. “Eat up, Momo, it’s going to be another long day today." I look back at my dark apartment from below. Overgrown reeds, peeling paint, blackened glass and broken railings- it was in stark contrast to the well-lit neighbouring apartments. What a joke! Who puts on these lights when it is so bright outside? Nobody thinks of conservation anymore. I stroke the cat back to sleep as I think of how the house looks almost ghostly, as if no-one ever lived in it.  The sun, long come up now shines brightly on my face. It’s time to go to work, I think, lighting up a cigarette.

// The first crevice formed when I forged a smile/ the hoax pulling my muscles/ until all the pink rushed to where they were absent/ and forced its way through/ the screen is a comforting presence//

At work, I rush to work. The boss tells me to take it easy, but I can smell his sarcasm and taste his bitter jealousy. After all, I have everything that he does not- a beautiful wife, a loving family, a handsome physique and outstanding skills. I know that if it were only the two of us, I would always emerge as the better one. This is why I do not mind spending long hours in front of the screen or not going home. No risk, no gain; big risk, big gain- that’s what the internet taught me. He did not have anything but his incompetence going for him and perhaps that was what he was always fighting over with his mediocre wife. Maybe she found out about his deeds with the junior manager (He had seen them together in his glass walled office tasting each other’s tongues one foggy evening after work). “He held her by her hair”, they said. “Ah, those pretty curls! I hope he did not pull them off”, someone else said. I gloated on his downfall, thinking that I will be his replacement. At last! The central glass cabin with the large windows and pretty wallpaper was going to be mine! I will have to replace the pictures that were hung above the door- multiple deities and a woman with a pretty dimpled smile. What should I hang there? Better ask Momo.

//It gushed through my warmed hair follicles/ when you held me in an embrace and her smell flooded my nose/ when I scratched your skin my cuticles oozed/ my navel oozed/ my skin oozed/ oozed and oozed and oozed/ What do cats dream of?//

Who decided that to be objective is to be objective? Isn’t all truth perception? But what is a fact? Maybe we can send applications to the fact-determination board for an RTI? Or even appeals of consideration? I would very much want that board to review its take on what they consider as the fact of being alive. Is the scale a physical or a mental measure? Anyways, it seems that the boss is barely alive these days, if you consider life to be a mental state of being. He stares out into space as the company plunges into bankruptcy and his wife screams and pulls her hair out. There is glass everywhere and the gods look up from their shattered portraits on the floor. “What do you want from God?” I had asked the boss on the multiple portraits. The latter mumbled something about a good life, happiness and all that philosophical bullshit. Huh, the counterfeit. Please God, I say, let me get the promotion. I rush through all the strewn materials- paper, stationery, screens, trash, employees’ angry tears, desperate laughs, more screens and panic-stricken faces, never stopping always moving. My feet hurt from the constant moving. Maybe it was in such a hubbub that I signed the sleazy deal papers with that sham company. I woke up to screaming. “Do you have any idea how I have endured these years?” some woman was shouting. She had a slight lilt and a high-pitched voice which would be very soothing at a lower pitch. “I am not mad! You have driven me crazy! I will burn everything down”- I wanted to tell them to take their fight elsewhere as it was disturbing my much-needed sleep. As I tried to close my eyes again, I realised that I had fallen asleep standing. No wonder my feet hurt. I move around, trying to reduce the pain.

//I stick to the screen/ They say time heals everything/ hence the wait/ If I wait for you, will you look at me?/ Will you turn back time?//

Momo is a great cook. When we first married, I used to look forward to mealtimes with the appetite of a beast. Compliments, flowers, wine flowed freely in the post-marriage bliss. I was a fresh hire then, my prompt social climbing still a few years away. Some great person was of the idea that happiness comes in moments, like waves. Everything in life is momentary, all feelings, all states. Life is like a river, it flows and changes etcetera. All these are Momo’s words of wisdom. I, an idiot, could never reach her level. Her dimpled smile made my day and we spent days blissfully lounging in the nearby park amidst the trees that she loved. That was when he joined, the starry-eyed newbie whose light never seemed to dim. Clad in his checkered shirt and khaki pants, he surrounded himself with plants, wore pendants with various Gods painted on them, always saying that they spoke to him, granting him all that he desired. That was when I hung their portraits on my walls, both at home and in my office. Momo adopted a cat, claiming she was lonely. The first fights began on this note. Everything is a flash from there on. All I can hear when I close my eyes are loud sounds- breaking, screaming, yowling, or thumping. I disagree with Momo on the credibility of my memories- she says I tend to forget. But I claim she remembers too much- “do not trust your brain”, I tell her, “It is our greatest enemy”. Beautiful brains like her make up things when something does not go their way. I coax her into going back to sleep and ignoring the scattered cat-shit, arguing everything is a bad dream. She glares, thrashes, hits herself and screams- perhaps because I don’t pay attention. The flowers around the house wilted, her beloved plants died and Momo became glued to the screen. That was when the constant moving began. I became unable to sit down. I had to keep moving to be able to breathe properly. Everything became a blur, everything rushed past. In that blur I saw her - eyes twinkling, cheeks dimpling, curly hair flowing when she first walked into the office - My Momo. The stars when viewed from close quarters are actually burning balls of gases. Maybe that was what caused the combustion that burned down our house. Or the electric heating rod which Momo used to heat water and alternatively burn herself to catch my attention. Once, even the curtains caught fire. Women, I tell you.

//You, my Sisyphus, unto thee I bestow/ The gift of time/ Everlasting and ever-stretching/ You a sieve, never holding, never stable/ Never sane again/ The screen will always shine on you//

 “Sorry, who did you say you are again?” I blurt out hurriedly. “I am God”, he shrugs. I think back on my day- crawled to work at seven, squeezed in the train, stuck to the grainy screen till five and crawled back home at nine. No alcohol or intoxicant. I rub my eyes again. What a random day to be a prank-victim! I stump out my cigarette and start to make my way out of the dark alley into the main road, refusing to meet the expectant eyes of the checkered-shirt and khaki pants-clad “god”. The dull ache in the soles of my feet remind me of my lack of rest. I need to stop moving, I tell myself. I wake up in front of the screen, the same in front of which I had once found Momo’s lifeless body.

***